On this page: Licinius

doubtful, but as the tyrant was anxious to signalize his reign by the punishment of a vestal, Licinianus confessed that he was guilty, in order to save him­self from certain death. In reward for this com­plaisance, he was simply banished, and Nerva sub­sequently allowed him to reside in Sicily as the place of his banishment. Here he supported him­self by teaching rhetoric, having been previously one of the most eloquent pleaders in the courts at Rome. (Plin. Ep. iv. 11 ; Suet. Dom. 8.)

LICINIUS. 1. C.; licinius, was, according to Livy (ii. 33), one of the first tribunes of the plebs, b. c. 493, who was elected with only one colleague, L. Albinius, and according to the same writer, these two immediately elected three others. According to other writers the number of two re­mained unchanged for a time ; and, according to others again, among whom is Dionysius (vi. 89), five were originally elected by the people, and of them, two were Licinii, namely Caius and Publius. (Comp. Liv. ii. 58 ; Ascon. in Cic. Cornel, p. 76, with Orelli's note ; Plut. Coriol. 7.)

2. sp. licinius, tribune of the plebs, B. c. 481, according to Livy (ii. 43). Dionysius (ix. 1) gives the name Sp. Icilius [IciLius, No. 1]; and in favour of the latter there is the fact, that in no other instance do we find the praenomen Spurius in the Licinia gens.

3. sex. licinius, a senator, whom Marius or­dered to be hurled down the Tarpeian rock, on the J st of January, b. c. 86, the day on which he entered upon his seventh consulship. (Liv. Epit. 80 ; Pint. Mar. 45 ; Dion Cass. Fragm. 120.)

4. The name of three or four slaves or freed-men, mentioned by Cicero, of whom the only one deserving of notice is the licinius, an educated slave belonging to C. Gracchus, who used, accord­ing to the well-known story, to stand behind his master with a musical instrument, when he was speaking, in order to moderate his tone.. This slave became afterwards a client of Catulus. (Plut. Tib. GraccJi. 2 ; Cic. de Or.iii. 60 ; Gell. i. 11.)

LICINIUS, Roman emperor (a. d. 307—324), whose full name was publiusflavius galerius valeriuslicinianuslicinius, was by birth a humble Dacian peasant, the early friend and com­panion in arms of the emperor Galerius, by whom, with the consent of MaximianusHerculius and Diocletian, after the death of Severus[severus, flaviusvalerius] and the disastrous issue of the Italian campaign [maxentius], he was raised at once to the rank of Augustus without passing through the inferior grade of Caesar, and was in­vested with the command of the Illyrian provinces at Carmentum, on the llth of November, A. d. 307. Upon the death of his patron, in 311, he concluded a peaceful arrangement with Daza [maximinusII.], in terms of which he acknow­ledged the latter as sovereign of Asia, Syria, and Egypt, while he added Greece, Macedonia, and Thrace to his own former dominions, the Helles­pont, with the Bosporus, forming the common boundary of the two empires. Feeling, however, the necessity of strengthening himself against a rival at once ambitious, unscrupulous, and power­ful, he entered into a league with Constantine, and after the termination of the struggle with Maxen-tius, during which he had acted the part of a watch­ful spectator rather than of a sincere ally, received in marriage (a. d. 313) Constantia, the sister of the conqueror, to whom he had been betrothed two

years before. Meanwhile, Maximinus, taking ad­vantage of the absence of his neighbour, who was enjoying the splendours of the nuptial festivities at Milan, placed himself at the head of a for­midable army, and setting forth in the dead of winter succeeded, notwithstanding the obstacles offered to his progress by the season, in passing the straits, stormed Byzantium in April, and soon after captured Heracleia also. But scarcely had he gained possession of the last-named city when Licinius, who had hurried from Italy upon receiving intelli­gence of this treacherous invasion, appeared at the head of a small but resolute and well-disciplined force to resist his further progress. The battle which ensued was obstinately contested, and the result was long doubtful, but the bravery of the troops from the Danube, and the great military talents of their leader, at length prevailed. Maxi­minus fled in headlong haste, and died a few months afterwards at Tarsus, thus leaving his enemy undisputed master of one half of the Roman empire, while the remainder was under the sway of his brother-in-law Constantine. It was little likely that two such spirits could long be firmly united by such a tie, or that either would calmly brook the existence of an equal. Accordingly, scarce a year elapsed before preparations commenced .for the grand contest, whose object was to unite once more the whole civilised world under a single ruler. The leading events are detailed elsewhere [constant!-nus, p. 834], and therefore it will suffice briefly to state here that there were two distinct wars ; in the first, which broke out A. d. 315, Licinius was compelled by the decisive defeats sustained at Cibalis in Pannonia, and in the plain of Mardia in Thrace, to submit and to cede to the victor Greece, Macedonia, and the whole lower valley of the Danube, with the exception of a part of Moesia. The peace which followed lasted for about eight years, when hostilities were renewed, but the precise cir­cumstances which led to this fresh collision are as obscure as the causes which produced the first rupture. The great battle of Hadrianople (3rd July, a. d. 323) followed by the reduction of Byzantium, and a second great victory achieved near Chalcedon (18th September), placed the eastern Augustus ab­solutely at the mercy of his kinsman, who, although he spared his life for the moment, and merely sen­tenced him to an . honourable imprisonment at Thessalonica, soon found a convenient pretext for commanding the death of one who had long been the sole impediment in his path to universal do-

mnon.

However little we may respect the motives, and however deeply we may feel disgusted by the sys­tematic hypocrisy of Constantine, we can feel no compassion for Licinius. His origin, education, and early habits might very naturally inspire him with a distaste for literature, although they could scarcely justify or excuse the rancour which he ever manifested towards all who were in any way distinguished by intellectual acquirements, and a life passed amidst a succession of scenes in which human nature was exhibited under its worst as­pect, was by no means calculated to cherish any of the purer or softer feelings of the heart. But while he had all and more than all the vices which such a career might produce, he had none of the frank generosity of a bold soldier of fortune. He was not only totally indifferent to human life and suffer­ing, and regardless of any principle of law or jus-